So it’s opening soon, and even though I consider myself religion free, in the sense of not having a faith, I’m planning on seeing it. It looks interesting. So now when I started noticing ads and trailers, I checked them out - lo and behold, it’s rated R. The reason? ‘Graphic violence’. Well, d’oh.
We have age ratings in Sweden too (15 is the highest age limit), which I abhor since I think it’s the responsibilty of parents and not the state to decide what their kids can view or not. My understanding of the American rating system is that nudity and language is a no-no, whereas violence normally is ok. Since the rating system in the US is self-imposed, my impression is that it’s mainly a way for Hollywood to safeguard itself from things like that idiotic lawsuit about JJ’s boob. Further speculation (and I may very well be way off the target) on my part leads me to think that the people they are trying the hardest to appease is the religous right/fundies/moral majority/ whatever derogatory term is most in use right now. You guys know what I mean.
So why, fer chrissake (heh), does this movie get this rating? I simply cannot wrap my head around it.
Have you heard about the movie’s depection though? It’s supposed to be very gritty, very gruesome, and very graphic. Could well be very frightening for children, and parents certianly have a right to some sort of simple information system for the movie’s contents (though arguably this system is very arbitrary).
What rating should a movie get when it shows a person being subjected to intense, gory torture for most of its length?
By the way, an R rating is “under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.” So yes, kids can see the movie if their parents want them to.
Your understanding of the American rating system is a bit off. It’s quite common for films to be rated R for violence alone. Many, if not most, action/horror movies are. Also, the rating system does place the decision in the hands of parents-- least up until the NC-17 level. You are perfectly free to take your kid to see an R rated movie.
From what I’ve read, much of the action of “The Passion” consists of a graphic depiction of Jesus’ torture and execution. Sounds like R material at least to me.
Kind of a Christian snuff film, I guess.
This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask last week… a co-worker of mine (very religious) was talking about planning to take his relatively young kids to see The Passion, because he “wants them to connect with Jesus.”
I had already heard that the movie is probably going to be quite graphic in terms of how it depicts the Crucifiction, and Jesus’ suffering in general. I’m thinking of Braveheart here; that film was quite graphic in general, and even though the final torture scene wasn’t actually gory, it was brutally difficult to watch. “Disturbing” is putting that scene mildly. I can only imagine that my kids would take it even harder than I did.
A question for parents here: would you take pre-teen kids to see The Passion, knowing that it’s going to be gory and that it’s probably going to have some pretty disturbing stuff in it? WWhere would you draw the line one taking your children to see this movie? Wouldn’t you (at least) see it for yourself first?
I liken it to Lord of the Rings for me… I really wanted my kids to see it, especially after I saw Fellowship for the first time. However, I knew it was going to have some potentially scary/violent material, and I pre-screened each film before agreeing that they could see it. However, they’ve now seen all three in the theatre, and the parts I was sure they’d be the most scared by didn’t seem to bother them at all.
However, The Passion is a bit different. I expect that it’ll be even more violent and gory than LotR (the difference in ratings is one reason, knowing Gibson’s style is another). I’m curious to see it myself, but I somehow doubt my kids will be seeing it until they’re at least in their teens… and at the very least, I’d see it before my kids so that I knew what they were in for. My children are 11, 9, and 3 (the three-year-old wouldn’t be seeing it, of course).
How about the other parents? What do you think? Where do you draw that “line”?
The Gaspode, to answer your question about the Amercian rating system, I look at it like this: generalized violence is more acceptable than specific, graphic trauma. Battle scenes, some blood, and stuff blowing up will most likely earn a PG-13 for a film. Punctured flesh, dismembered body parts, lots of blood, and graphic torture will most likely be an R. The difference between Lord of the Rings and Braveheart seems to illustrate this well. Similar films, in ways, but the former showed only general violence and was PG-13, while the latter was more specified and graphic, and was R.
Oh, and I’ll throw in my own WTF for this subject… do we really need yet another film portraying Jesus and the Apostles as a bunch of white guys? I would really love to see a film that had a dark-skinned Jesus, at the very least, since he most likely was of dark skin.
I know that popular religious culture these days always shows Jesus as lily-white, but when Gibson said he was going for a realistic portrayal, I was hoping it would extend to this aspect of the story, which (to my knowledge) has never been addressed in film.
You have read the Bible? It’s not exactly Harry Potter…
As a friend of mine, who saw an advanced screening of the movie, said: “It is not the bloodiest movie I have ever seen. It is not the goriest or most violent movie I have ever seen. But it is bloody, gory, and violent. It is possibly the most brutal movie I have ever seen.”
Our church has rented out a couple of theaters to see it the day before it opens, but parents have been strongly encouraged not to bring young children.
Sorry I can’t be more specific, but I recall a made-for-TV movie several years back about Mary (I believe) that depicted her as very dark skinned (but blue-eyed). Looking on iMDB, I can’t find anything, other than the 1999 Jesus, with very non-non-white Jacqueline Bisset and Debra Messing in the female leads.
I’ve read that the actor playing Jesus is olive-skinned. The only pictures I’ve seen of his face though are where his face is covered in blood and dirt so it’s hard to tell.
I wonder what the CAP Alert guy will have to say about this one. He always states that context is NEVER justification for violence/sex/other bad things in movies. Of course, he also condemned “Harry Potter” for being full of “witchcraft” but gave “Mary Poppins” a perfect score, so it’s not like he holds to his standards all the time.
Just as a side note–Tom Carder (CAPalert guy) just put a photo of himself up–he looks just like a slightly tubbier Ned Flanders!
Here’s a picture of James Caviezel, the Jesus in question.
I just want to point out that, in principle, the MPAA ratings are just suggestions. There’s no law that says a theater can’t show R or NC-17 movies to people under 17. Of course, in practice, the ratings are taken pretty seriously.
Well, your understanding is wrong.
Vampire Effect (2004) Rated R for some violence.
Royal Warriors (2004) Rated R for violence.
Sunstorm (2004) Rated R for some violence.
Postman Fights Back (2003) Rated R for some violence.
The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971, re-rated 2003) Rated R for some violence.
Red Water (2003) Rated R for some violence.
Gunsmoke: To the Last Man (2003) Rated R for violence.
Prodigal Son (2003) Rated R for martial arts violence.
The Statement (2003) Rated R for violence.
Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge (2003) Rated R for some violence.
The Legend of Diablo (2003) Rated R for some violence/gore.
Alien Lockdown (2003) Rated R for some violence and gore.
Lost Treasure (2003) Rated R for some violence.
Vicious (2003) Rated R for violence and gore.
Taking the Westside (2003) Rated R for some violent content.
Heart of Dragon (2003) Rated R for violence.
Wait, isn’t the hate-white crowd supposed to preach that no matter skin color, we’re all human? As I’ve learned, Jesus died for ALL mankind. Can’t you get past race and just take it for a portrayal of the last few hours of His life?
OK, you tell me who should have played Jesus. Keep in mind he has to speak Aramaic.
Someone on the board who saw an earlier screening said the scourging scene lasts about 15 minutes. It’s gonna be beyond ‘pretty disturbing’ in my opinion.
Hate-white crowd. You crack me up, man! Nobody better at irony on this board than you.
The guy made a legit comment that Jesus, a Middle Eastern guy, is always shown in Christian art as a what we might call a Honky despite the fact that if he existed, he wouldn’t have been a white guy. This is not news, or shouldn’t be.
Topol. And Cazaviel learned Aramaic for this film, so I doubt it’s impossible.
:rolleyes: Way to miss the point completely, asshat. Film after film has portrayed Jesus as a Caucasian white man, from Max von Sydow to Robert Powell to Willem Dafoe (and I liked Dafoe’s performance, mind you), when history and the regional characteristics of Jerusalem would suggest a dark-skinned heritage. A film which claims a greater level of historical accuracy should address this disparity… and yet this one doesn’t seem to do so. I consider that unfortunate.
“Hate-white crowd”… that’s a good one, since you’re the first to start spouting hateful rhetoric in this thread.
An actor who is of Middle-Eastern (possibly Isreali) descent would be my first choice. Preferably someone who is previously unknown or little-known in mainstream films… this, also, would lend credibility to the role; the audience would be focusing less on the performer and more on the character of Jesus. And again, this would be more historically accurate, in its own way.
And as already stated, Aramaic can be learned. These days, it’s pretty much a guarantee that an actor wanting to play this role would have to learn it… I doubt you could find one who just happened to know it beforehand (dead language, don’t’cha know).
the dark-skinned Mary referred to is probably the NBC film MARY- MOTHER OF JESUS and she was portrayed by Pernilla August, who was Anakin Skywalker’s Mom in Star Wars I-The Phantom Menace. Christian Bale played Jesus. She did a good job, but he stunk & the script was awful story-wise & really theologically off-kilter (the Risen Jesus is seen as a mirage & His Great Commission is spoken through her).
FriarTed - she is of course Swedish and not very dark for being Swedish. I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t comment on how she did. However, the thought of her playing someone of Aramaic heritage seems just wrong.
I don’t think it is. I’ve just spent way too much time over at mpaa.org and I can now state that the rating system is arbitrary, to say the list, especially since they clearly state that the rating system is above preassure from the studios. Yeah, sure, whatever.
I’ve gone through every movie that was rated R during 2003. Quite a few a re-realeases and since the statistics include movie released for video/DVD as well, it came to a grand total of 650 movies. I find some of the resons to be a bit… strange. There are references to “vampire violence”, “Sci-Fi violence”, “Battle violence”. The board makes a distinction between “drug use” and “drug reference” and one movie got slammed with an R for having a scene with an abortion, another for having “a brief sexual reference”.
Of course, I haven’t seen but a fraction of the movies. I’ve never even heard of the majority, and I don’t think anyone else has either. Yikes, a lot of crap is released every year.
The board that does the ratings has some concepts too that needed to be deciphered: “Some language” must mean an occasional ‘fuck’ or ‘shit’. “Pervasive strong language” must mean ‘Scarface’. Then there is nudity and sexual nudity. One movie got the R for “gross out humor”. Sexual content, without nudity, is a no-no too. Drug use, especially among minors is a guarantee to get an R rating.
Violence features prominently among the R rated movies, but almost always in connection to any of the other no-no’s. Not surprising. Most modern action movies will contain violence, expletives and a gratuitous sex scene.
Now, I know statistics can be used to prove just about anything, and I do have a point to prove, so use the amount of salt you need. I broke down the list of movies in four cathegories:
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Movies that got an R based on violence and another factor.
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Movies that got an R based only on violence.
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Movies that got an R based on anything but violence.
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Movies that got an R based on anything but violence and drugs (leaving language and/or nudity/sex).
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397
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37
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216
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155
So, while about 60% of the movies got an R based on violence and something else, only 6% got an R based only on violence and about 24% got the R based on sex and/or language. Based on that, and with no way of proving it, I believe that if the producers had taken out sex and profanities from the movies in cathegory one, the number of R rated movies would’ve dropped radically.
The mpaa’s choices regarding PG13 movies makes this even more strange: Scary Movie 3, Return of the King, Bruce Almighty, Girl With a Pearl Earring all got PG13 and I would argue that movies like these have crude humor, sex/nudity and violence to an extent that surely matches a lot of R rated movies. I cannot begin to understand why ‘Lost in Translation’ is rated R or, in connection with my OP, The Gospel of John got PG13 with the comment “Rated PG-13 for violence involving the crucifixion.”